


Abomination

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Best Friends, Confusion, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Foreign Language, Gen, Kryptonian Language, Languages and Linguistics, Self-Discovery, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24388708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: After a long-expected visit from Eve, Conner learns a little about what she's been doing, she learns a lot about him, but he also learns that not every word in English translates so well to Kryptonian, and it might just turn his very small world on its head. But thankfully, he's always got Garfield there to fix it. To fix him. Not that Garfield thought that he needed to be fixed.
Relationships: Kon-El | Conner Kent & Garfield Logan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	Abomination

**Author's Note:**

> I know what you're thinking! Hey Multi, you can't just take your own canon and give it backstory that doesn't exist and isn't compliant with the show! You can't make up words from a language that doesn't exist! What are you even doing! But jokes on you, I recently brought a Superboy comic purely for the sake of ingesting more Conner into my bloodstream, and there is a quote by Tim Drake in one of the sections towards the end, and I quote, "Superboy. Named Kon- a slur in Kryptonian that means 'Abomination'. He was created from genes of two worlds... at home in neither." So take that! But actually, I read this in the comic and I just really hard to write this. I always have Conner comforting Gar, so I thought it was about time we had it the other way around, you know?? The quality of this fic really declined towards the mid-to-end of it, so if it gets a little shitty, I had a lot going on and I apologize. I broke my toe on the weekend, and I had my final assignment for this unit at Uni to present, so that was a little stressful. But! I really hope you enjoy this fic because even if it's a little on the rougher side, I like it xx

They had found her for him, at his desperate insistence, and it had taken much longer than he would have liked but he couldn’t complain because now she was here, sitting cross-legged on his bedroom floor, opposite him, one hand in Krypto’s fur, looking at him in that special way that she did, and he hadn’t realized how much he missed her until she was sitting right in front of him. The sunlight glinted off of her red hair from the open window, and when she threw her head back and laughed, he thought it was the prettiest sight he had ever seen.

“So,” Eve said, reaching her free hand up and brushing her from her eyes. “Enough about me. What have you been getting up to? How have you been?”

Conner shrugged. He wasn’t sure what to say. “I’ve been fine. Cadmus found me again though, but I guess you already heard about that.”

“I did,” Eve said sadly, though Conner couldn’t understand why. “I’m sorry about that. I also heard that they re-instated Project Rakshasa , which I thought was odd. It was probably nothing. The timing was just a coincidence.”

“No,” Conner shook his head, and Eve looked at him strangely. “They used my friend for Project Rakshasa. They took him when they took me. He tried to protect me, but they took him, and they used him for that… project. I don’t know what they did to him, but I know it wasn’t good. I think he hurt people. I don’t know.”

Eve’s face had darkened and when she looked down, her hair fell back over her eyes. She didn’t bother to push it away as she hummed, pursed lips, not meeting Conner’s gaze. He made a mental note to ask her about that later, or maybe ask Dick what it meant when she had gone. “That’s a shame. Uh, is he alright? I know that Cadmus has a tendency to… get what they want without caring about the consequences.”

Shrugging, Conner fiddled with the laces of his shoes, wrapping them around his fingers before unwrapping them again. “I don’t know. He doesn’t like to talk about it very much, and I don’t like to push him if I can help it. It makes him sad when I bring it up, and I don’t want to make him sad anymore. He’s always sad. It’s not fair. He’s my best friend, you know. It’s nice to have one of those, I never knew what it would feel like until I had one.”

That smile came back to Eve’s lips, though it was smaller than before. “Best friend, huh?” she laughed. “What’s his name? What’s he like? You need to tell me _everything_.”

“His name is Gar. Garfield. Gar is just a nickname,” Conner couldn’t believe he hadn’t brought him up yet, and he couldn’t wait to tell her all about him. “He’s really nice, and we go for walks and play video games and we make the smoke alarm go off whenever we’re in the kitchen together, but it’s lots of fun. I think he drinks too much coffee but he tells me that I’m just over-reacting. He likes playing video games and I help him on the levels he can’t quite get to, and we listen to music really loud and he doesn’t get mad at me for eating cereal out of those big glass bowls as the others do and-”

“OK, alright,” Eve laughed kindly and slapped Conner’s knee. He didn’t really feel it, but he thought it was sweet anyway. He liked the way her eyes lit up when she smiled. “I guess you really like this boy, huh? Slow down.”

“He’s got green hair,” Conner said, slower now. “And he can turn into a tiger, and I think sometimes a snake, but mostly a tiger, but it’s also green like his hair. He’s given me a nickname too, just like Gar. He calls me Kon, says it’s short for Conner, and I really love it. It makes me happy.”

The smile stayed on Eve’s face, but her eyebrows pulled together and her eyes narrowed, and even though her lips said ‘happy’, the rest of her features said something different. “Kon? Does this friend of yours speak Kryptonian?”

Conner frowned. He had never thought about it and didn’t know why he ever would. “Um, no? I really doubt he would. Kory does though. She’s been trying to teach me some words. Why?”

“Because Kon is a Kryptonian name. More of a word, really,” Eve sat back as she spoke. “That’s quite a coincidence if you ask me.”

Recoiling slightly in surprise, Conner blinked. “You know Kryptonian?”

Snorting, Eve ran her fingers behind Krypto’s ears, and he made a deep, contented sound in his throat. “Well,  _ yeah _ , of  _ course _ , I know Kryptonian. I was the leading scientist in your creation, Conner. When the process was complete and you were fully developed, I was planning on teaching you the language.”

“What does it mean?” Conner asked, excitedly, the idea that the name he loved that was given to him by his best friend, the person who meant the most to him, could also, somehow, mean something in Kryptonian, a language he didn’t know from a planet he’d never been to but was such a big part of him that he couldn’t believe it. When Eve didn’t reply, Conner frowned. “Eve? What does it mean?”

Eve reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear again. “You don’t want to know, Conner. I mean, really. It’s… it’s not a very nice word. Not at all. Your friend probably has no idea, and it’s very sweet, but in Kryptonian it’s… not so sweet.”

He paused as he thought about the implication of that, and hated the flutter of fear he could feel in his throat. “Eve? What does it mean?”

“Conner-”

“ _ Eve _ .”

She recoiled, though he didn’t know why. He was trying to sound like Dick, stern and resolute, not like Hank, angry and curt, or like Jason, bitter and heated. He wasn’t trying to scare her. He wasn’t angry. But she looked fearful anyway, and Conner couldn’t understand it. Was that what everyone felt when he was near him? Did he scare everyone? He hoped not. “It uh,” She rubbed the back of her neck and refused to meet his eyes. “In Kryptonian, it means abomination. Kon means abomination.” 

There was a long-stagnant pause as Conner processed this information. “Oh.”

“Not that you’re an abomination!” Eve said hurriedly, and Conner saw the panic in her eyes, clear as day. She still wouldn’t meet his eyes and was looking everywhere else, his nose, his shirt, his chin, even at Krypto. “Not at all, I just thought that the name was strange, you know. In terms of Kryptonian linguistics, there’s no way that it could be anything other than a coincidence. Your friend probably didn’t mean anything by it, especially if he doesn’t know Kryptonian, so I wouldn’t worry.”

“Oh,” he said again, not really sure what else he should say.

The mood during the rest of her visit was sombre, and the conversation grew stagnant and forced until it was eventually time for her to go, and by then Conner was glad for it, even though he cared for her very much. He walked her to the elevator and watched from the window as she put her baseball cap over her hair and walked briskly down the street, mingling with the crowd and disappearing soon after, never once looking back at the tower or up at him.

When he eventually turned away from the window, he saw Kory in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil. “Hi,” he said.

“Hey,” She replied, eyeing him as he came closer. “Is everything alright? Did you need something?”

He licked his lips. He wasn’t sure who to ask, but he knew that Kory would give him a no-nonsense answer, even if it hurt for him to hear. He knew she would be honest with him, and straight with him, and that’s what he needed after the last couple hours. “What does abomination mean?”

Kory actually seemed taken aback. “Uh, something that shouldn’t exist. Something that people think is disgusting, or something they really hate. A freak of nature. A mistake. A monster. Something shameful and wicked and evil. A sin. Uh… I don’t really know how else to describe it to you, Conner, I’m sorry. Why do you ask?”

“You speak Kryptonian,” Conner said quietly as the gravity of the word caught up to him and it started to make sense. “Why didn’t you tell me that Kon meant abomination?”

Licking her lips, Kory looked away. She obviously hadn’t expected the turn the conversation was taking. “I thought that it was ironic, actually. But Gar… he wouldn’t know that it’s a slur, and I was hoping that you would never find out either. You guys just seem so happy and so close with each other, I didn’t want to burst your bubble and… where are you going?”

Before she had finished her explanation, Conner walked past her with Krypto hot on his heels and made his way down the long hallway that his room was on the very end of, and shut the door behind him. He would have locked it, but nobody would come looking for him unless they needed him for some heavy lifting or something, so it didn’t really matter. The theme of the day seemed to be avoiding his gaze, and he was just fine with that for the moment.

Garfield finished his first shift downstairs in the low-lit room with bright monitors beaming their information onto his face and making his eyes burn with the strain of trying to keep up with it. By the time he finally took a well-earned break, it was late afternoon, the tiger was very grateful for the break away from the screens, and he had wandered into the kitchen for some sort of snack that he could bring back down with him. Maybe some popcorn, or some chips, or some leftovers in the fridge. He hadn’t decided.

He wondered how Conner’s meeting with that Cadmus woman went. He had offered to sit with him, but Conner must have seen the fear and apprehension in his eyes, and kindly rejected the offer. It was no secret that Garfield still had lingering pain from Cadmus, and even a nice woman like Eve made him uneasy, and even though she was Conners ‘mum’ or whatever he called her, he still didn’t like her being in the tower.

His thoughts were interrupted by the realization that he wasn’t really alone, and he moved just a little until he could have a direct line of sight on where the hushed, frantic whispers were coming from, and he saw the rest of the team in the far hallway, having a very intense discussion under their breath, looking concerned and distressed.

“Hey,” Garfield interrupted them, and their whispering immediately ceased as they whipped their heads around to look at him. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Hank said a little too quickly. "Nothing at all. Go away."

Before Garfield could speak, Dawn sent him a sharp glance and stepped forward, doing a much better job of pretending that nothing was wrong. “Nothing that concerns you, really. Just some new information has come to light and we’re trying to figure out the best way to handle it.”

Kory had a guilty look etched over her face, and Garfield couldn’t help but wonder if the ‘new information that had come to light’ had something to do with her home planet and her sister. He wanted to press, but for some reason, he didn’t feel like he had the right to. “Uh… sure, alright. Whatever. Has anybody seen Conner, by the way? He was going to come down to the security lab to tell me how his meeting with Eve went, and I haven’t seen him yet.”

The mood suddenly grew darker and the older Titans exchanged knowing glances that Garfield wished he understood. The tiger growled deep in his throat in a rumbling sound that he only barely managed to hold back, and paced back and forth within his chest. The tiger was uneasy, and it took a lot these days to make the tiger feel restless and apprehensive. There was something very wrong going on here, and both Garfield and the tiger knew it. If anything, the tiger just affirmed Garfield's suspicions, and he didn’t like it once bit. Dick was the one who spoke up. “I think he’s in his room, but I’m not sure. Maybe go… check it out?”

“Um,” Garfield said as he slowly began backing away, very weirded out by whatever the hell was happening. “I didn’t need your permission or prompting to do that, but sure, yeah.”

Quickly, Garfield made his way down the obnoxiously long hallway with closed doors on either side until he arrived at Conner’s door, the one that was almost always left open a crack surprisingly closed. The tiger didn’t like it, and frankly, neither did Garfield, so he rose a hand to knock. “Conner? Hey man, it’s me. Are you in there?”

There was no reply, but he heard the familiar low whine of Krypto, and the tiger felt it was safe to enter, and Garfield was inclined to trust it. He turned the handle, thankfully not locked, and pushed open the door to make his way inside.

He found Conner, sitting at the head of his bed with his back up against the wall, staring blindly at the other end of the room, Krypto resting at his feet, his legs straight over the edge of his bed, his head resting between them, his tail wagging the moment he caught sight of Garfield once the door moved out of the way.

Confused, Garfield slowly made his way into the room, closing the door behind him, and walked around the room until he sat next to Krypto on the other side of the bed and ran a hand through his fur, but kept his eyes firmly fixed on Conner. “Hey, bud. What’s going on? Did you have a good day with Eve?” He was surprised to receive no reply, and even Krypto seemed distressed by it. “Have you just been sitting here and staring at the wall since she left? Kon?”

“Did you know that Kon means ‘abomination’ in Kryptonian?” Conner spoke so suddenly that Garifled was taken aback. “Eve told me. And I asked Kory if she was right because she speaks Kryptonian, and she said it was true. Did you know that?”

Garfield didn’t know what to say. “What?”

“Something that shouldn’t exist,” unphased, Conner continued like Garfield hadn’t spoken. “A freak of nature. A mistake. A monster. Something shameful and wicked and evil. A sin. Something that people hate, and are disgusted by, and fear. Everyone is afraid of me. Kory and Eve and Dick and Dawn and everyone else. I’m an abomination.”

It felt like the ground was falling out from under him. Garfield couldn’t even comprehend how those thoughts connected in Conner’s mind. “Well,” he started slowly. “I’m not afraid of you, so you can take me off that list. I don’t think you’re an abomination, Kon, I never have.”

“Kon is a slur in Kryptonian. For people like me. People who never should have been,” Conner twiddled his fingers over and over again in his lap just to give himself something to do other than think about the meaning of the words coming from his mouth and the look on Garfield’s face. 

“I don’t speak Kryptonian so there’s no way I would have known that,” Garfield protested. 

“I know,” Conner said. “That’s why I’m not mad at you or anything. You’re my best friend. Even if you had known, you never would have used it to hurt me. I just… I don’t know what to think about it anymore.”

Licking his lips, Garfield nodded. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to move over and wrap his arms around his shoulders, hold his head to his chest and tell him that he was wrong, that he wasn’t an abomination or something to be hated and feared. That he was his best friend, and nothing would ever change that. But somehow, he didn’t think that would help. “If you really hate it that much,” He said gently. “I can stop using it? We can come up with a different name, or something else if that would make you feel any better. I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have.”

Conner shook his head. “No. You’re not hurting me. You’re my best friend. You’d never hurt me.”

“That’s true,” Garfield said. “But that doesn’t mean that I’ve never hurt anyone accidentally. I hope I’ve never hurt you. But I’d be happy to stop using Kon as a nickname if it upsets you.”

Sighing, Conner pulled his eyes away from the wall and looked over at Garfield with a troubled expression and wet-looking eyes. Garfield was reminded once again how despite the fact that he looked like a teenager or young adult, he was technically, scientifically a two year old in the body of a very super-powered man. “No. Yes. I don’t know.” Conner said, sounding so detached and sad that it pained Garfield to hear. Even the tiger disliked it. “I like having a nickname. It’s special to me, it’s nothing I’ve ever had before and the first one I’ve ever been given was by my best friend. It means a lot to me. But I don’t want to be an abomination. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re not an abomination, Kon- Conner,” Garfield corrected carefully, catching himself before he could use the nickname that was so natural to him. It was going to be weird not to use it anymore if Conner really did decide he didn’t like it. Garfield had grown attached to it. “I don’t know who told you that, but they’re wrong. Besides, I don’t think Eve meant it. I think she and Kory were just trying to give you a translation for something that means a lot to you, your language and your name.”

“I’m a clone,” Conner said, and he sounded so confused, so distraught that Garfield wanted to wrap him in his arms and never let him go. “I’m not a real person. That’s what an abomination is, right?”

“You’re a real person,” Garfield insisted. He reached out and pinched Conner’s arm. “Did you feel that?”

Conner frowned. It didn't hurt, not even close, but he felt it. “Yeah?”

“What do you feel right now? Like, do you feel any kind of emotion at all?”

“Sad,” Conner answered honestly. “Scared. Confused.”

“Then you’re a real person,” Garfield said. “Only real people can feel things like that. _Emotions_ like that. Even the tiger feels impressions of things, passes things onto me. But because I know what those emotions feel like, I can… interpret what they’re supposed to be. I can tell when it’s angry or frustrated, or worried. I know what it’s feeling and it knows what I’m feeling. We share emotions, but despite that, only my feelings are tangible. You know what I mean?”

“I don’t know,” Conner mumbled, sounding miserable. 

Sighing, Garfield ran a hand down his hair, tugging frustratedly at the strands. Frustrated at the situation, not at Conner. Never at Conner. “Look, man, by your logic, I’m just as much an abomination as you are.”

Suddenly, Conner’s head snapped up and he looked at Garfield with wide, horrified eyes. “What? No, no you’re not. You’re so nice and so kind, and you’re so polite to everyone you meet, and you’re my best friend, and-”

“And I can turn into a giant green tiger with a mind of its own that can and _will_ tear people apart with its teeth if I let it,” Garfield retorted gently. “You tell me how that doesn’t fit the textbook definition of ‘abomination’.”

Conner seemed to be at a loss of words. “No, you’re not-”

“A freak of nature. A mistake. A monster,” Garfield continued. “Something shameful and wicked and evil. A sin. Something that people hate, and are disgusted by, and fear. I was made this way, just like you. If you think that you’re an abomination, we both are.”

But Conner just shook his head. “You weren’t made, you were born, like a normal person. I’m a clone. It’s not the same thing.”

“What?” Garfield snorted. “You think that I was _born_ with a tiger inside of me? No, it was put there by… by someone who was trying to help me at the time, to make me better after I got sick, and he accidentally put the tiger there.”

Conner blinked. This was the first time he was hearing about that and he was a little surprised. “Oh,” he said. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah,” Garfield said, reaching out and slapping Conner lightly on the shoulder with a faint laugh, and a smile finally began to curl at the edges of Conner’s lips. “So we’re both in the same boat, dude. We’re both freaks of nature. People are afraid of both of us. I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind being an abomination. Sure, maybe it’s true, but I wouldn’t trade what I can do for anything. I like the tiger. It makes me feel complete. Maybe we’re both monsters and abominations, but is that really so bad? Maybe we could be freaks together. Members of our own personal club. I don’t know about you, but I like the sound of that.”

Garfield was proud to see the smile finally beginning to light up Conner’s face. He had missed it. Conner was always so bubbly and happy and excitable, it was hard to see him so down. He was constantly optimistic, and Garfield didn’t like to see him wallow in his pain like everyone else in the tower tended to. “A members-only club? I think I’d like that.”

“Just you and me. Our own group. What do you think of that?” Garfield asked. 

“I think I’d really like that, actually.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Garfiel laughed as he moved across the bed until he was lying next to Conner on the pillows with his back against the wall. Almost instinctually, Conner leaned over and rested his head on Garfield’s shoulder, not his full weight but enough that it felt normal, and in response, Garfield reached up and ran his fingers through his hair. “Us abominations need to stick together, right?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Conner replied and Garfield was glad to hear him perk up to his usual self. “Thanks, Gar. I really needed to hear that. I’ve just… I’ve had a bad day.”

“You feel better now?”

“Much better, thanks to you. As always.”

Laughing, Garfield rested his head against Conner’s and closed his eyes. Conner hummed at the contact that he craved so much. “Have you decided whether or not you still want me to use Kon as a nickname?”

There was a long, tense pause that Garfield held his breath the whole way through until Conner let out a long breath and nodded, the motion making Garfield’s whole body move with him. “I want you to keep using it. It may mean 'abomination' in Kryptonian, but Krypton is dead and gone, and I’m on Earth now. And on Earth, it’s a nickname, not a slur. I like being called Kon. I don’t care what it means to everyone else- it just means friendship and love to me. So yeah, I’d like you to keep using it.”

It felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and Garfield held Conner closer to his side, as much as he was able. “No worries, Kon. It would be my pleasure.”

“Thanks, Gar.”

At the foot of the bed, Krypto wiggled and wagged his tail and barked a happy bark.

When Kory visited the room many hours later to apologize to Conner, she found them there in the exact same position, both sleeping on top of the other, finding comfort in each others touch, Krypto asleep between their legs, and she shut the door silently and let them be, deciding that clearing the air wasn’t worth waking them up and ruining the precious moment. 

**Author's Note:**

> There was also a bit of confusion because my teacher's name is Eva and I was writing about Eve, so if there's any spelling that I missed, please be sure to let me know xx


End file.
